


Villain Interrupted

by miserygrave



Category: LazyTown
Genre: Glanni being a little shit, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2019-11-14 03:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18044315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miserygrave/pseuds/miserygrave
Summary: When a new man comes to town, Sportacus and the kids find themselves astonished (and in the former's case, jealous) over how easily he's managed to fit himself into Robbie's life. But who is he really? And will Sportacus stand a chance in the realm of love?AKA Glanni is a little shit and arrives to torment his brother and LazyTown's hero.





	1. New Visitor, New Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> Am I a few years late? maybe. Take this fic anyways! It'll end up being pretty short, but I'm having fun writing it anyways and I hope whoever reads it enjoys too!

On a crisp spring morning, when the flowers have just begun to bloom and the sweet smell of the blossoms blows in, Stephanie wakes up feeling as bright and fresh as the season. After a quick meal prepared by her uncle and some brief stretches in order to mimic her personal hero who always lectured her on being prepared before playing, she bounces off to the town garden. It had become something of a gem of pride, a badge of honour that the kids had been working on day in and day out, so imagine her surprise upon seeing the state of the garden this morning.

She tilts her head in confusion and looks down at the tulips sticking haphazardly up out of the dirt. The flowers look… perfect. A little _too_ perfect. As she leans down and sniffs at it, she notices how stiff and shiny they look, and all she can smell is the dirt and - she gasps - plastic!

“Plastic?” she asks incredulously to no one but herself and the flowers. With a bit of trepidation, she holds out a hand and flicks it with her pointer finger and sure enough, it meets hard, cold, plastic. Standing up and posing with her fists on her hips, she wonders aloud, “Who on earth took all of our flowers and replaced them with fake ones?”

The sound of a bouncing ball catches her attention and she turns, spying Trixie wandering up to her with a basketball in hand.

“Hey, Pinkie,” Trixie greets, grinning at her. “Wanna play some basketball?”

“Well,” Stephanie sighs. She _does_ want to run off and play, but she’s quite bothered by the state of the garden. “I would, but come look at this!”

The two girls stand side by side and look down at the fake flowers.

“Someone flower-napped the tulips?” Trixie asks in the same tone of voice as Stephanie had used at first, disbelieving in just how ridiculous it is. “Did they flower-nap anything _else_?”

Oh no. She hadn’t even checked! Down the trail are the daffodils, and yes, they’re stiff and plastic-y and terrible too. And even further down there was an entire _bush_ that had been replaced by a fake! They’re heading over to the other side to check on the hyacinths, all purples and blues and whites and from afar looking alright, when the honk of a car draws their attention.

“Hello, Stephanie, Trixie,” Stingy greets stiffly, pulling up alongside them in his little yellow car. “What are you two doing? You can’t play ball in _my_ garden.”

“We’re not, Stingy!” Trixie replies somewhat defensively. Even she wouldn’t do something so reckless, not after all the time and effort they’d all put in. Thinking about those hours digging in the dirt, carefully planting bulbs and bushes, she gets huffy again. “Someone stole our flowers!”

Stingy casts a disdainful eye first at her, then the flowers, then back at her. “I think you mean _my_ flowers.”

Stephanie plants her fists on her hips again. “Not the point, Stingy. Anyways, can you help us check what all’s been taken?” He purses his lips, weighing his options, so she smiles as sweetly as she can and reasonably adds, “You’ll be a lot quicker than us in your car!”

After another split second of hesitation, Stingy sticks his nose up in the air and without another word starts puttering along a different branch of the path, stopping now and then to check the flowers on the side. When they meet up on the other side, they agree - everything in the garden has been replaced.

“Who’d _do_ such a thing?” Stephanie wonders yet again. It was so thorough, and must have happened overnight, so - aha! “It must have been Robbie!”

Trixie hums thoughtfully. “Well, he _is_ a villain, but why? I don’t think stealing flowers would help kick Sportacus out of town.”

“Well no…”

Stingy also pipes up, “This is a lot of effort for Mr. Rotten to go through.” With some distaste, he adds, “He - ugh, I hate to say this - could’ve just _stolen_ my flowers. Why’d he even bother replacing them?”

“Well… That’s a good question…”

In the end, they can’t think of a good reason for Robbie to have put in that amount of trouble just so that they’d have a plastic garden instead of a real one when instead he could have been sleeping. That all means they’re back at square one, though.

Stephanie sighs but tries to stay upbeat. “I guess there’s not a lot we can do about it now. Why don’t we go see my uncle and see if we can’t get some new flowers to put in the garden?”

Trixie snorts derisively, throwing the basketball from hand to hand. “What, just so the culprit can do it again? Nuh-uh. I’d rather just go and play. The flowers still _look_ pretty at least, even if they don’t smell like much.”

“Oh. I guess that’s a good point, Trixie.” Stephanie looks over the garden again. It does _look_ fine from afar, and to be honest she really doesn’t want to go through all that effort again just in case it does get stolen all over - as much as that thought makes her feel slightly guilty, because heroes shouldn’t turn away from a challenge. She chews her lip, eyes the basketball in Trixie’s hands, and then decidedly shrugs. “Okay! Let’s go.”

* * *

The next day, Ziggy arrives at the playground sometime after breakfast looking equal amounts upset and confused.

“Ziggy, are you okay?” Sportacus asks with concern. Usually the youngest member of their group was bouncy and smiley, but now he seemed as though a gray cloud was cast over his head. It was quite discomfiting seeing him in such poor spirits, and he idly knocks the crystal at the centre on his chest in worry that it had somehow missed a spot of trouble, but it stays silent.

Trixie, Stingy, Pixel, and Stephanie, who had all been passing and kicking around a ball, notice the young boy’s mood and together they all head over - or backflip over in Sportacus’ case.

“I - I’m okay. Just…” Ziggy looks down and toes the ground, eyes flickering up to Sportacus and back down. He looks embarrassed as he shakes his head and backtracks, “Nothing. It’s nothing, nevermind.”

The kids all look at Sportacus expectantly. He blinks owlishly, somewat surprised that they’re passing off responsibility to him so quickly - Stephanie hadn’t even tried to say anything! - but quickly kneels down with a hand on Ziggy’s shoulder.

“Don’t feel pressured to share what’s bothering you, Ziggy,” Sportacus begins with a warm smile so as not to spook the child any more than he already seemed to be, “but if something is wrong and we can help, we would be happy to hear you out! Isn’t that right, kids?”

A chorus of supportive “yeah”s and “yes”s come from the four.

Ziggy frowns harder at the ground, scuffing the toe of his shoe around a bit. “You’ll be disappointed.”

Sportacus is surprised again for the second time in under a minute. That was certainly unexpected. “Why do you think I would be disappointed?”

The tension and indecision rides Ziggy’s face a bit longer as he glances side to side, avoiding Sportacus’ eyes, but after a moment of silence he bursts out, “The - the bakery didn’t have anything!”

“The… bakery didn’t have any of what?”

“Of _anything_!” Ziggy complains loudly. “I had to go to the doctor’s today for a shot, and my mommy said I could get a sweet from the bakery, and I got my shot without even crying, and when we went to the bakery, they didn’t have _anything_ but bread! Someone already bought it all!”

Sportacus’ eyebrows fly up towards the brim of his hat. He had been in the bakery once or twice to solve some trouble with the workers almost burning themselves or even shelves of ingredients toppling over, although he never ate anything they provided, and it always seemed fully stocked.

Stephanie’s brow furrows. “Someone bought all the donuts?” Ziggy nods. “The muffins and cakes?” Ziggy nods again, lower lip stuck out as he pouts. “The strudels? The macaroons, and pies, and those chocolate croissants?” Ziggy stomps the ground and looks ready to cry as he nods again. “Wow. Someone must’ve been hungry.”

The machine on Pixel’s wrist beeps as he quickly taps in some numbers and a green light flashes on his face as it runs through the calculations. “According to my computer, the likelihood of that happening is… only 5%!”

“That’s pretty low,” Trixie says, looking thoughtful. “Who would ever need so much sweet stuff?”

They all share looks. Sportacus tries to cut them off at the pass before they jump to conclusions. “Now, kids, I know what you all must be thinking, but -”

“Robbie Rotten!” they all chime together, Ziggy in a voice full of what amounts to childish righteous anger.

Sportacus sighs. Well, he did try. And, if he was being honest with himself, it did sound something particularly _Robbie-_ like, as the man did have quite the endless stomach when it came to sugary treats.

“He makes his own, though, doesn’t he?” Stingy queries. “When he has picnics, he always has homemade cake.”

“Yeah, but who else would get all that stuff?” Stephanie counters. “Maybe he was just too lazy to make his own today, so he went out and bought it.”

“And went through the effort of waking up early, coming all the way to town, buying it all, and carrying it all the way back?” Pixel pokes his wrist computer. “The chances of that are almost as low as the chances of the bakery being sold out at this time of day.”

“Maybe he knew about Ziggy’s doctor’s appointment.” The group looks over at Trixie who scowls nastily as though the very thought of Robbie had caused a bad taste in her mouth. “He played a mean trick on you, Ziggy.” The young boy looks devastated, eyes wide and mouth trembling.

“Okay. That’s enough kids,” Sportacus interrupts a bit more sharply than he meant, and Trixie shrinks into herself, preparing to be scolded. “We don’t _know_ anything, and I certainly don’t think Robbie knew about Ziggy’s appointment, _or_ his agreement with his mother.”

At least, Sportacus hopes that’s the case. Robbie’s very attached to his villainous status, and although over the years he had warmed up slightly to them all, he could still be quite precocious and generally still seemed to prefer to spend his time outside of his schemes alone and quiet - but he’s not cruel, no matter how much he might want to pretend to be. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Robbie is actually a big softie, just as Stephanie said, and many of his schemes turn out to be merely thinly disguised ways to play with him and the kids.

It makes him wish he was better with words, so he could go and _talk_ with the villain, convince him to come out and interact with them without needing a disguise or a scheme. That day seems far off coming, but Sportacus still holds onto that hope.

So, he concludes to himself, even if Robbie did happen to buy up the bakery that morning, he surely didn’t do it with any malicious intent. Sportacus would stake his hero status on it.

“Why don’t we…” Sportacus pauses as he thinks about the solution to the problem. The kids could always work together to whip up a nice little treat for Ziggy, who clearly deserves it after his bravery getting his shot. He’s just about to suggest that when Stingy points dramatically across the street.

“Look!"

They all turn and spy a tall, lanky man in a bright pink coat nibbling on an eclair.

“Who is that?”

“He’s got a donut thingy!”

“It’s an eclair, dummy.”

“Whatever it is, he must have gotten one at the bakery, right?”

“Let’s ask!”

And like that, the five kids are off like a shot, leaving Sportacus blinking at the small dust cloud they’d kicked up. “Wait for me!” He races across the street after respectfully checking both ways for traffic, and meets up with them on the opposite street corner.

The tall man turns and frowns down at the gaggle of kids all rapid-fire asking questions, then quirks a brow at Sportacus.

He looks like Robbie, but slightly different. His hair is shorter, messier, makeup done slightly differently but with the same arched brow and grey eyes. And was it his imagination, or was his face slightly off too? It couldn’t be him, he decides. Unless, Sportacus amends, _unless_ Robbie is in disguise. He isn’t sure why, but sometimes Robbie could even fool him completely with his disguises. It would be just his luck that some different concealer and eyeshadow would trick him.

“Can you shut them up?” the man asks, pointing sharply down at the now offended kids, the delicately long finger with a shapely nail right at the tip curling as though in distaste of being so close to them. “They’re ruining my breakfast.”

“We can hear you, you know,” Trixie says loudly.

“In just a moment, _I_ won’t be able to hear anything because I’ll have gone deaf from you all shouting at me. What do you want, you little gremlins?”

Sportacus decides to quickly intervene before Trixie takes the kickball still in her hands and throws it at the stranger’s face. “We were just wondering if you had gotten that -” he motions to the eclair in the man’s hand “- at the bakery, and if you had any to spare?”

The man’s black painted lips purse, then stretch into a wide smile. “Why, yes! I did get this at that quaint little baked goods shop. It’s delectable. And,” his smile drops into a sneer, “I _don’t_ have any for you.”

“How rude,” Stephanie huffs. “Who are you anyways?”

Sportacus sighs inwardly in relief. He really wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he couldn’t recognize Robbie _simply_ because of the change in makeup and clothes.

“Me? My name is Glanni.” He pops the rest of the eclair in his mouth, and swallows without chewing. “Now that introductions are over -”

“But we didn’t introduce ourselves.”

“- I’ll be leaving. Tata.” And with that the man spins on his heel and quickly strides away.

“Jerk,” Trixie grumbles bitterly, hands flexing their grip on the ball. “Pixel, does your computer say I can hit him from here?”

With a loud clap of his hands, Sportacus draws their attention back to him. Ziggy looks just as miserable as before, and perhaps more due to the shutdown that Glanni had given him. “Why don’t we all work together to make something nice for Ziggy to eat instead of bothering the new person in town, hm? What do you all think?”

Trixie steams, but when the others agree, and when Ziggy looks like a pitiful little puppy begging for a treat, she sighs loudly and agrees. They head off in a small group towards Stephanie’s house, and he smiles as he listens to her already humming her cooking song. With that settled, Sportacus sets off to find this mysterious Glanni and figure out what he’s doing in LazyTown.

* * *

 

It takes him awhile. He looks around town, through the shopping area, gets distracted by saving the small kitten from a tree, helping the Mayor hammer in some nails, and then looks through the playground and park. It’s very nearly dinner time when he finally spots Glanni, and he’s not alone.

Walking just on the other side of the wall enclosing the park, natural as could be, Glanni is there, arm looped in with _Robbie’s_. Sportacus rubs his eyes and looks again, and yes! There’s Robbie, taking a walk! He flips up onto the stone barrier and gets into a handstand, but even with the change of perspective there’s no denying it. Glanni and Robbie are walking together, closer than Sportacus has ever seen Robbie willingly get to another person for an extended period of time. Now, sure, Sportacus has held Robbie in his arms plenty of times while saving him out of necessity, and had even danced with him once or twice (and those were memories he held quite dear), but this was something quite different.

From afar, he watches Glanni lean into Robbie’s side, grinning and talking about this and that, and he watches Robbie’s face twitch and frown but he lets Glanni plaster himself to his side.

“That’s fine,” Sportacus says out loud to no one in particular.

They approach him after a while, slowly meandering their way into the park. He flips down off the stone enclosure and jogs over to them. Normally he’d be cartwheeling or backflipping his way over but somehow he felt a little less bouncy than usual.

“Hello Robbie,” Sportacus smiles. Robbie frowns at him and tugs once at the arm Glanni currently has looped with his own but it doesn’t budge, so he simply stands there and turns his head away from Sportacus. That’s fine, Sportacus thinks again to himself.

“Hello Glanni,” Sportacus greets a bit tepidly.

Glanni’s shiny lips stretch into a cheshire like grin. “Hello, hero. Fancy seeing you here.”

Sportacus forces a smile back onto his face. “I was… patrolling.” That’s not technically a lie. He _was_ on the lookout. Glanni didn’t need to know he was looking for him. “I’m a bit surprised to see you here, Robbie. I thought you were allergic?”

The flower garden was something that he and the kids had put a lot of time and effort into, and while he was disappointed regularly when Robbie refused to partake in it, citing his severe pollen allergies, he could understand. What he couldn’t - or perhaps _refused_ \- to understand was why he was here right now in the place he cursed with every breath when spring came with a stranger that Sportacus had never met before today.

It hurt his feelings, just a bit.

Robbie sniffed, but Sportacus could tell it wasn’t from allergies. “He wanted to come, so I came,” he says snappishly. “And besides, Sportablind, there’s nothing here to be allergic of.”

Sportacus looks at the flowers dotting the parks pathways pointedly, a little let-down at Robbie’s tone and words - did he mean that he hadn’t been allergic of flowers this whole time? Was it just an excuse so he didn’t have to spend time with him and the kids? Or - wait. Sportacus looks a little more closely. A breeze passes over him and he notices how inflexible the plants seem, standing perfectly upright despite the wind. He bends down and takes a closer look and…

“Is that... plastic?” Sportacus asks, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice. His eyes flicker back up and look at the duo. Robbie’s still stubbornly looking away, but Glanni’s watching him with what he can only describe as malicious glee. It’s like the look that Robbie sometimes gets when he believes he’s finally completely tricked Sportacus into leaving forever.

“Did you two…?” No, Sportacus shakes his head, that’s no good. If he accused the both of them and it turned out Robbie really had nothing to do with it, then the villain would get all prickly and upset and probably storm off home. Even if he’s out walking with a stranger, at least he’s outside, right? So he starts again, “Do you two know who did this?”

Glanni starts snickering, his free hand coming up to cover his smiling mouth, and Sportacus notices just then the picnic basket on his arm.

“Oh! Are you two having a picnic outside today?”

“Yes, indeed. Aren’t we, little Robin?” Glanni all but purrs, nuzzling his and Robbie’s cheeks together. Robbie’s mouth ticks up into a sneer at the nickname but Glanni doesn’t seem to be able see it from the angle he’s at. “And we have quite the assortment of goodies today! We’ll eat until our stomachs get sore,” Glanni crows happily, flipping up the lid of the basket and letting Sportacus look inside. It’s full of pastries and cakes and other treats.

Aha. “So you _were_ the one who bought up everything at the bakery today?” Sportacus frowns. “That’s a lot of sugar, for just you two. It would be better for you to -”

“ _Oh_ , quiet down, Sportadork,” Robbie interrupts loudly, and then to no one in particular he complains, “I’m tired of standing up, my back hurts, and I’m hungry. Can we hurry this up?” Glanni shrugs and begins to tug him along when Robbie plants his feet firmly into the ground. “Wait.”

Sportacus and Glanni both raise their brows at the sudden change of mind.

“Why did you know about him buying up the bakery?”

Sportacus quickly begins to explain, “Ziggy needed to go to the doctor’s today -”

Robbie makes an odd yelping noise in the back of his throat, sputtering. “Wh- he - what - _doctor’s_?!”

A warm, bubbly feeling rises up so powerfully in Sportacus’ chest the he has to bounce on his heels to try and manage the burst of energy. “It’s fine, Robbie,” Sportacus all but chirps, “all he got was a little needle. His mother wanted to get him a treat from the bakery when they came back, but…” He motions to the wicker basket Glanni still has held up like a price.

Before Sportacus can explain that the kids worked together to make a tray of cupcakes for Ziggy instead, Robbie’s grabbing out some iced sugar cookies and shoving them into Sportacus’ hands. He stares down at them, feeling vaguely uncomfortable with all that refined sugar sitting in his hands, but Robbie manually forces his fingers to curl around them safely.

“Give those to Soggy.” Robbie jumps back, straightening his vest and mouth twitching. “Whichever one that is. Can’t stand brats crying.” He coughs and spins around away from Sportacus. “ _Whatever_. I’m leaving.”

If he didn’t have his hands full, Sportacus just _knows_ he’d be doing some cartwheels and star jumps and every other exercise under the sun he could do to show off just how happy he is. “Thank you, Robbie. I’m sure Ziggy will be very happy!” he smiles at the taller man’s back that stiffens under his words.

Glanni looks between them with curious eyes for a moment, then hooks arms up with Robbie again and they wander away without taking a look back which Sportacus is almost grateful for. He still hasn’t managed to stop grinning like an idiot by the time he gets to Ziggy’s house.


	2. Stealing and Teasing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glanni interacts more with the inhabitants of LazyTown and some worrying things are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to headcanon city!

The next day and the few days after that, Robbie and Glanni are nowhere to be seen. The kids had made idle chatter about it being nice that their games aren’t being interrupted every other minute by a new “stranger” who had come to town to show them some quiet activity, or otherwise try to boot Sportacus out permanently, but by the fifth day that opinion changes.

“When the heck is he gonna show up, huh?” Trixie asks irritably, kicking a ball with frustration as they finish their third soccer game. She’d made extra sure to shout loudly during the game, particularly towards the places they'd seen his periscopes pop out at various times in an attempt to coax Robbie out of his lair, but their local villain still had yet to make an appearance.

“You mean Robbie?” Ziggy asks, chewing on some taffy. He’d been snacking on candy more and more often, she’d noticed, even though Robbie hadn’t even been around to influence him.

“Yeah,” Trixie frowns, eyes following as the ball rolls to a stop a few meters away from her. She doesn’t even bother to run over when Stingy snatches it up and proclaims it to be _his_. “I’m kinda bored. He always comes up with crazy stuff to do, you know? I mean, it’s still fun playing around but... ”

Ziggy nods sagely, and says through a mouthful of taffy, “An’ ah couhn’t zay ‘ank yew.”

Trixie pulls a face. “That was really gross, Ziggy.”

He swallows, cheeks pink. “Sorry. I said, ‘And I couldn’t say thank you’. For the cookies he sent me.” Ziggy grins at the memory of the cookies, all sugary and still soft. Sportacus had shown up looking giddy, yet somehow also treating it as though he was carrying a bomb in his hands. “It was really nice of him, but he hasn’t been around, so…”

Stephanie notices them off talking and jogs over. “What’s up, guys? Done playing?”

Before Trixie can say anything, Pixel speeds into the field, almost tripping over himself with how fast he was going. “Guys! Guys! You wouldn’t believe what I - oof!” Trying to stop he tumbles over, grinding his knees into the grass, but hops back up and dusts himself off without complaint.

“Are you okay? Your knees...”

“What? Yeah! It doesn’t matter, come _look_! It’s -”

“Hello kids!” Sportacus lands firmly on his feet near the group of kids. “I saw Pixel running over here. Are you okay? It looked like you tripped.”

Pixel grimaces and pats his knees. “I just gave them some grass burns, but _listen_ , you won’t believe what I just saw!” Breathlessly he points over the barrier to the field and just a bit beyond to a small cluster of trees. He motions them over, and runs off to where he’d pointed to.

They all share a look and then follow.

As they get closer, Pixel crouches down and puts a finger to his lips. “Be quiet,” he whispers, and slowly inches his way around to a small sunny knoll. The little clearing comes into view and all the kids’ jaws drop.

Seeing Robbie napping isn’t an unusual sight, and although he typically takes to benches with a pillow it isn’t _unreasonable_ for him to lay down in a warm, sunny place, as though he’s less of a villain and more of a tall, grumpy cat. But what _is_ unusual is that he has company. Their prickly, antisocial, touch-phobic villain is all cuddled up with the new man, Glanni, both of them resting together under the long pink coat that Glanni had been wearing when they met him.

Trixie breaks the silence. “What the heck?”

Glanni’s head pops up and Trixie slaps her hands over her mouth - she had been way louder than she’d meant to be and now their covers were blown. He looks over at them, eyes drifting over the confuddled faces of the kids and Sportacus’ oddly strained expression. His dark lips curve up into a smug smile. Trixie notices his hair is all messed up like he’s been sleeping all afternoon. He raises a slender finger and places it over his mouth.

Trixie hesitates for a moment, then slowly heads over to the two of them while ignoring the panicked whispers and missed grabs from the other kids. Strangely, Sportacus doesn’t bother trying to stop her. Looking back to gauge how disappointed he might be in her, she finds he’s just staring at Glanni and Robbie.

There’s a purple blanket spread out underneath them and Glanni’s jacket spread over them. Robbie’s laid flat out on his back and snoring lightly, chest rising up and down. He looks weirdly peaceful and she feels an odd surge of protectiveness. He was _their_ villain, as Stingy-like as that sounded, and she wasn’t about to let some weirdo get all touchy-feely with him.

“How come Robbie was away for so long? Did you guys leave town or something?” she asks in a harsh whisper.

Glanni’s smile grows ever wider and even smugger if possible. “We were in his lair. We were just… _busy_.” The way he says it sounds scandalous, like when Miss Busybody is chatting on the phone and gasps about a juicy piece of gossip but Trixie doesn’t know what he’s trying to get at. Robbie’s almost always busy it seems like, with his schemes and his machines and his disguises.

“Well what were you guys doing?”

His brow curves into a perfect arch. “Learn to take a hint, will you? It’s private.”

She groans to herself. Adults were all so frustrating and stupid. “When are you going to _leave_ already?”

“Oh, maybe never.”

She grimaces and wishes she had her soccer ball to throw at him, but she doesn’t have it so she just has a staring contest with Glanni until her eyes get dry and she blinks.

He looks triumphant over winning their little staring contest and waves her off. “Why don’t you run off and be quiet, little girl? My Robin is resting.”

Robbie _does_ look like he needs the sleep, with the bags under his eyes looking more pronounced than usual. Feeling defeated, she walks back to the group and they all quietly walk back to the field, even Sportacus.

“So what did you guys talk about?” Pixel asks, voice still hushed.

Trixie grits her teeth. “Well I asked him where they’ve been and he said he and Robbie were just _busy_ this whole time,” she mocks the way Glanni had said it, “and I told him to get lost but he said that he might be staying forever.”

Sportacus stops in his tracks, but before any of them can ask if something’s wrong, he smiles stiffly and says, “It’s time for lunch! Make sure you kids get some food!” And with that he does his signature move and runs off.

“Why are adults all so weird?” Trixie asks. No one can give her an answer.

* * *

Life’s been a bit difficult for Sportacus lately which seems a bit unreasonable considering that spring is his favourite season. He loves the smattering of rain showers in the early part of spring, loves the new blooms and blossoms, the blue, clear skies, and the ability to finally get back to playing soccer and football and all sorts of sports that one simply couldn’t do in winter.

However, usually, in the short few years he’d been here, he could always rely on Robbie popping up now and then to come out and play with the kids, or at the _very_ least be sneaking around town to get groceries or parts for his newest invention.

It’s been just over two weeks now since Glanni arrived and Robbie hadn’t played with them even once. Some other odd tricks had been played on the town, such as all of Miss Busybody’s beautiful patterned curtains going missing, but no plots to kick him out of town or get the kids to be quiet. It’s somewhat lonely.

He sighs aloud to himself for what feels like the tenth time within the minute. They’d been playing all day into the afternoon, so he’d sent the kids off for food and refreshments, mostly so he could stop pretending to be quite so bubbly. It got tiring after a while. No matter how much he loved the kids, he just couldn’t shake the down feeling from missing his friend.

On the route of his patrol through town, he passes by the bakery. The warm smell of freshly baked goods and bread wafts out the open door and he jogs in place as he considers it. Perhaps he could get something as a bit of a peace offering, bring it to Robbie’s lair and just… make sure he was alright. Not that he was worried about him spending all his time underground with a strange man that he apparently felt comfortable enough with to walk arm in arm and sleep all curled up with him, as compared to how he would always flinch if Sportacus even made the slightest movement towards him. No, not worried at all.

And certainly not jealous.

He’s looking in the window at the glazed confections wondering which one Robbie would like best when he hears a bit of a commotion behind him. The kids are chattering amongst themselves near the main road, so he pops over quickly to take a look at what’s going on. He tries not to frown, he really does, but it’s Glanni, and he can’t really help himself. At the very least he manages to school his expression into something neutral before they notice him.

“Sportacus, _look_ ,” Stephanie orders, sounding put upon.

He is looking, unfortunately. Glanni is lounging there on a bench, posing like a model in a fashion shoot, with a sharp new suit, sunglasses despite the clouds in the sky, and - hold on, back up.

“Are those Miss Busybody’s _curtains_?”

Glanni smiles at him, dark lips curled into a mischievous smile. “Not anymore,” he singsongs.

There’s a beat of silence as Sportacus struggles to wrap his head around that. “You stole her curtains -”

“Borrowed. Permanently. Without asking.”

“- _stole_ her curtains, and made them into a suit?” Sportacus could barely believe the words he was saying out loud. It was ridiculous, and seemed something so Robbie-like it made his mouth twitch into a smile without his permission; it was after all a mostly harmless theft in order to make a flashy outfit.

“Well, yes, I ‘stole’ them, if I must use such an obscene phrasing,” Glanni agrees, making air quotes with his fingers around the distasteful word, “but _Robin_ made the suit for me. He’s much more talented than me with that kind of thing.”

“Mr. Rotten made that?” Stingy’s voice is full of wonder, and with the gleam in his eyes Sportacus can’t help but wonder if Robbie will find himself strong armed into making the young boy a suit of his own by the end of the week. That is, if he can find him when he’s not being smothered by Glanni.

“Where _is_ Robbie, actually?” Stephanie wonders just as he thinks that, and the kids all take their turns peeking around the bench and the wall in case he was just hiding.

“Oh, he’s at the café buying me something sweet to drink.”

Glanni lounges back further on the bench, examining his nails nonchalantly with an eyebrow quirked.

“Wow,” Ziggy says in wonderment, “how are you getting him to be so nice to you?”

That’s what Sportacus would like to know too. He’s spent a long time now trying to befriend Robbie, and to varying degrees of success he’s at least conversed with him now and then, but never in his wildest dreams did he imagine Robbie could act so outright genially towards anyone.

“Oh, you know,” Glanni grins suggestively.

Stephanie gasps in realization, hands flying to her mouth. “Are you two -” _Don’t say it, Stephanie_ , Sportacus wants to beg. “- boyfriends?!” ...She said it.

Glanni sticks his tongue out at her. “Boyfriend and girlfriend are kiddie terms.” He ruffles a hand through his short hair thoughtfully, sticking a leg out and examining the most-likely expensive leather shoe he’s wearing, looking the very picture of refined boredom, but Sportacus swears Glanni sends him a mocking side-eye. “I _suppose_ you could say we’re partners though, in a way. In crime, certainly. And in life, well… We’ve been together in one fashion or another for our entire lives.”

Before Sportacus can digest that, a caustic voice behind them cuts through the excited bubble of children’s voices, “Get out of my way, brats.”

“Robbie Rotten!” the kids chorus on instinct, but they part as the villain stomps his way to Glanni’s side, who for his part is still lounging on the bench as he lazily holds a hand out for the sugary drink.

“Thank you, Robin,” is all Glanni says before carefully sipping at the milkshake. He pauses to swipe a manicured finger though the whip on top, holding it out. “Want some?”

It’s a blessing to Sportacus when Robbie grimaces and shakes his head. “That’s disgusting, Glanni.” Glanni just shrugs and pops his finger into his own mouth. “And _stop_ calling me that already. It’s abso- _lu_ _tely_ annoying.”

Stephanie “aww”s but has the propriety to look admonished when Robbie sends her a searing glare over his shoulder.

“What are you brats all doing here anyways? Why don’t you run off and -” Robbie gags dramatically “- _play_? Or at least go somewhere else and stop bothering me!”

They exchange startled glances and Trixie’s face goes slack jawed with surprise. “Did _you_ just tell _us_ to go and play? Seriously? Are you sick or something?”

Robbie’s shoulders slump as he shudders in disgust and Glanni snickers behind him. “Don’t remind me I just said that. Ugh, I’ll need to wash my mouth out. Anyways. I don’t have the patience for this. _Get lost._ ”

Trixie turns a glare onto Glanni. “This is your fault!”

He looks around innocently and points a finger at himself as if to say “me?”.

“Yes, you! You’re the reason Robbie hasn’t come out to play dress-up or make anything cool for us to play with or anything! It’s getting so _boring_ without him to play with, so just go away already!” Trixie huffs and puffs as her tirade ends, cheeks red and finger pointed at Glanni in accusation, face only going redder as Glanni starts shaking with suppressed mirth.

“Wuh - pl - dress - you _what_? I-I don’t _play!_ ” Robbie stammers out, taking a step back.

“That’s not true! You always come up with fun games.” Ziggy pops up next to her, holding his cape in front of himself nervously. “An-and I still didn’t get to tell you thanks for the cookies ‘cause you guys stayed at home so long! You never usually do that.”

Pixel flips open his computer as Robbie opens his mouth to argue. “Before you say anything -” Robbie’s mouth shuts with a click, instead crossing his arms and raising his shoulders like a cat raising its hackles. “- according to my calculations you’ve spent only one third of the time outside as you normally do! And _none_ of it has been trying to make us be quiet.”

Robbie turns sharply on his heel. “I’m getting out of here.”

“Wait! Please let us talk to you two some more,” Stephanie begs, stars in her eyes, and Robbie halts with a leg raised in the air. Sportacus supposes this is the first time she’s gotten the chance to talk to adults in a relationship other than her uncle and Bessie, and he knows how enamoured she is by the notion of romance nowadays - the last time he had been in her house he’d noticed the living room had begun to amass a fairly large collection of romantic movies.

“What do you want to talk about, you pink pest?” Robbie sneers but there’s no heat behind it.

If Sportacus had to guess, he’d put what little money he has on Robbie being embarrassed. It’s so sweet, if just a bit sad, how easily Robbie gets flustered with praise. Glanni clearly doesn’t appreciate what he has, if he doesn’t tell Robbie every day how smart or creative he is. If _Sportacus_ was dating Robbie he’d - Sportacus shakes his head to hard to clear that thought out he almost misses Stephanie’s question.

“Um, well I was just wondering, how come he calls you Robin? Is that a nickname?”

Glanni stands up from the bench while wiping an imaginary tear of laughter from his eye, one arm looping comfortably around Robbie’s shoulders and the other still holding his drink. “Allow me.” Robbie gives the arm a bit of a push but Glanni pulls him in tighter with a smile.

“I call him Robin because he was born in the spring like robins are, he’s colourful like a robin,” he says as he pats Robbie’s vest, “he has a nice singing voice like a robin -” the kids laugh and nod “- but most of all!” At this he tosses his empty cup in a graceful arc to a nearby trash can and spins around Robbie before stopping and throwing his arms out towards him. “He used to be just as delicate as a robin. You could look at him the wrong way and he’d be black and blue.”

Sportacus furrows his brow, an odd, uneasy feeling unfurling in his stomach. “What does that mean?”

Robbie groans loudly, scowling at the ground as Glanni teasingly says, “He really used to be like glass, you know. I didn’t know a person could break so many bones.”

“Most of that was your fault anyways, you - you - you absolute - _argh!_ ” Robbie flutters his hands in the air, trying to grab the perfect insult out of the air, but he changes his mind and instead finally just stomps away from the group while grumbling under his breath.

“What does that mean?” Stephanie asks slowly.

Glanni pulls a tube of lipstick and compact mirror out of a coat pocket and carefully applies it as he answers. “He’s toughened up now, but I played a bit too rough with him when we were younger. I guess I can still be a little rough now too, though... Oopsies.” He shrugs nonchalantly.

Sportacus feels distinctly as if a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over his head and shudders with the feeling of dread settling at the base of his stomach like a weight. Was… Was Glanni _hurting_ Robbie? The image of just a few minutes earlier rises unbidden to the forefront of his mind - Glanni putting an arm around Robbie’s shoulders and keeping it there despite Robbie’s attempt to remove it. He stands rooted to the spot as Glanni trails along after Robbie with freshly painted lips, cursing his hero training because it didn’t _cover_ issues like this. His general duties involved spreading healthy habits, stopping people from falling off roofs, even putting out a fire or two, but this? He isn’t sure what to do to help, if Robbie would even accept his help to begin with, as prideful and stubborn as he is.

Distantly Sportacus recognizes the kids are talking to him but he shakes them off and slowly trots towards his ship. The heavy thoughts don’t leave him for the rest of the day and night, lingering far past his typical bedtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note - there's NO domestic abuse going on. assumptions, and all that. just so you don't get worried about where this story may be going.


	3. Awkward Realizations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will probably be the second to last chapter (although I initially planned for /this/ to be the last chapter, it got a little out of hand and I wrote a few thousand words more...) This is probably the fastest I've ever written a fic. enjoy!

Robbie wakes up with a start when loud, metallic clanging starts ringing through the lair, bouncing off the walls and dinging around inside his head. He cracks an eye open, watches as Glanni starts pounding a hammer against the side of his microwave, groans, and rolls over to try and fall back asleep. He tries to focus on his breathing, focus on the comforting fur of his chair, focus on _anything_ that isn’t Glanni being an absolute menace who _still hasn’t stopped making noise!_

Finally, he gives up. Shoving his blankets down and off, he curses the day he’d allowed Glanni into his home. Typically if Glanni needed something, like disguises or machines, he’d simply write a letter and Robbie would ship the required items off to wherever he needed it, but this time, for some ungodly reason, Glanni wanted to come and - ugh - “visit”.

_“Can’t I come see my favouritest little brother?”_

_“I’m your only little brother.”_

_“Yes, but you’re still my favourite.”_

He never should’ve let that saccharine voice trick him. And now he was barely getting _any_ beauty sleep, because of tomfoolery like this!

“What are you doing?” he shouts over the clanging.

“There was a dent in the side of it, so I wanted to even it out!” Glanni replies cheerfully, gesturing at the now nearly demolished microwave.

Ah, of course, Robbie thinks to himself. He doesn't even have the energy to get mad about the fact he won’t be able to use it to make cake for breakfast. “Well are you done? Some of us need sleep.”

“You did sleep. Nearly three whole hours. I think that’s a record, dear Robin!”

A sharp pain starts pinging at the base of his skull and he can’t quite decide if it’s a headache out of sleep deprivation or irritation. He doesn’t normally sleep well anyways, never had really, rarely being able to sleep during the night, barely being able to sleep during the day for a nap or two. Insomnia and an abnormal circadian rhythm pairs about as well as toothpaste and orange juice - adding Glanni to the mix is like adding a dash of explosive gunpowder.

“Fine. _Fine!_ Fine, fine, fine. What is it you want?”

Glanni bats his eyelashes innocently. “Why, whatever do you mean?”

“Don’t play stupid, I don’t have the patience for it right now. If you’re being this annoying you want something, so out with it.”

Glanni tosses the hammer aside, pouting. “You’re just no fun sometimes.” He sighs dramatically, leaning against the counter. “If you must know, I want to go outside. It’s all stuffy and cold down here, I don’t know _how_ you put up with it. It’s really messing with my skin. Look at me, I’m breaking out!”

Robbie feels as though there’s a joke to be made about prison in there, but he’s too tired to think of it. “You know, you _can_ just go outside on your own. You are a grown man, even if you don’t act like it.”

“It’s not fun to go outside unless I get to mess with people, which is why I need you to come with me.”

That… sounds ominous. Glanni has very different ideas from him on what qualifies as “fun” - he’s always found that the small girl with the ponytails (Tricky?) to be more alike to Glanni than he’s honestly comfortable with. The type to enjoy breaking windows or stealing curtains, as the case may be. Glanni’s been amazingly well behaved the whole time he’s been in town barring certain circumstances like this morning, which left Robbie both thankful and unsettled. It had actually… been quite nice of him to steal all the flowers in the garden so he could go and see it without sneezing his brains out, and Glanni being nice without repayment was simply not possible. All he could do was wait for the other shoe to drop.

“Why do you need _me_ to mess with people?”

Glanni leans his face against his hand, smiling almost lovingly at him. It was creepy. “You can be so dense sometimes, Robin.”

Before Robbie can ask what _that_ means, he’s being dragged up to the disguise machine and spun bodily around to change out from his pyjamas into his daily outfit.

Glanni takes a step back and eyes him over critically.

“What? What’s wrong now?”

“I’m just not feeling this today.” With that as the only explanation, Glanni pokes a few keys of the piano and four new outfits drop into the tubes. He stops at the first one, a gardener’s outfit that Glanni had borrowed to muck around in the garden with that still has dirt stains on the knees because he didn’t have the decency to clean up after himself. Glanni grins at it, but then shakes his head and moves to the next one.

“Er, don’t you have anything to say?” Robbie says without meaning to.

“What? Say about what?”

Robbie motions at the dirty gardener’s outfit. “You should say something!”

Glanni rolls his eyes. “Are you still going on about me not washing it? Oh, _forgive me_ , I’m so, so sorry -”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” Robbie steams with frustration. There’s proper sequences to these things! “Oh, forget it. Just hurry up. I want breakfast and thanks to _someone_ , my darling microwave-turn-cake making machine is in a bit of a poor shape.”

“Yes, yes.” He turns to the next tube and squeals in delight at the ball gown inside. Robbie had spent a few weeks on it for no reason in particular, even while knowing there was absolutely nothing he could wear it for. Most of the outfits he makes are for a scheme, but he’d seen a few bolts of high quality purple satin on sale and on impulse bought it all up with nothing to use it for, so he’d gone ahead and made something to distract himself during the winter months when his desire to go outside was at an all time low. It’s long, poofy skirt barely fit into the tube. “Wow, you really out did yourself on this. It’s so sparkly and pretty! Can I have it?”

Ugh. He _knew_ that was coming. “No, you cannot, you little magpie.”

“Hmm, Robin and Magpie. Cute,” Glanni murmurs distractedly, still staring at the dress. With a sinking stomach, Robbie gets the suspicious feeling he’ll wake up one day after Glanni leaves and find the dress missing.

The next tube has a charming mermaid disguise Robbie had cooked up one night while extremely sleep deprived, only to store it away permanently when he woke up the next morning drooling on his workstation and subsequently remembered he hates swimming.

“Oh, now _this_ is perfect,” Glanni purrs at the final outfit.

Robbie’s a little scared to look, afraid of what could possibly earn Glanni’s approval, and he’s spun around before he can muster up the courage. When he looks down at himself, he heaves a sigh of relief. No catsuit. No odd or horrid outfit he’d made while half-asleep. Just a suit made of shimmering purple fabric and gold lining, with a dark maroon turtleneck shirt. He’d been planning on using it for a scheme involving the town hall and a banquet, something something sugary food something something running Sportacus out of town. Or something. It had never come to fruition, as much as Robbie hates using that phrase.

“Alright. Happy now? Can we go eat already?”

Glanni shakes his head in faux-disappointment. Or maybe real disappointment, Robbie’s not quite sure. “Of course not. We still have to do our makeup!”

Two hours later, Robbie climbs out of the hatch from his lair, feeling a strong desire to plant a foot into Glanni’s face as he climbs up behind him. He loves makeup just as much as the next guy, but Glanni’s perfectionist streak was a mile wide when it comes to his cat eyes, and he’d redone them alone about 20 times before Robbie manhandled him out of the bathroom and towards the exit.

Glanni hops down from the hatch, somehow landing perfectly safely despite the heels he’s decided to wear with the suit he’d made for him.

Robbie starts off towards town without waiting, but Glanni catches up and hooks an arm with his. “Alright, Robin,” Glanni says with a smile that’s all teeth. “Let’s go have a breakfast date!”

The sinking stomach sensation is back. Robbie gets the feeling Glanni’s already begun “messing” with people, and he’s still not sure how.

* * *

Sportacus pulls his telescope away from his eye and stows it away. He’d been in his ship all morning, anxiously watching the billboard at the edge of town, half of himself wishing the crystal would just go off already so he could have a legitimate excuse to go check up on Robbie and the other half hating himself for even thinking that.

Now that Robbie and his self-proclaimed partner were out of the lair and into town, he could go and talk to them; all he has to do is figure out what to say. He hesitates on the ladder down as he realizes he doesn’t have even the shadow of a plan, but decides he’s best at thinking on his feet, so he steels himself for a possible confrontation and speeds off towards the villains.

Without thinking, he leaps over the low stone wall towards them, flipping and landing directly in front of Robbie, earning him a sharp shriek and a front row seat to watch Robbie throw his arms around Glanni in fright, curling around him like a kid. Glanni just laughs at him and Sportacus has never felt so insulted.

“Hi, Robbie! I wanted to talk to you about something,” Sportacus greets in a forcedly pleasant tone.

Robbie cautiously uncurls himself. “Sporta _flip_ , how many times do I have to tell you -” he begins, sounding angry but Sportacus finds himself blindsided by the way Robbie looks and doesn’t even hear the words coming out of his mouth.

“Robbie, you look beautiful!” he says before his brain and common sense can stop him. The almost velvety sheen of the jacket catches the light and shifts colours as the villain moves, going from purple to almost pink, and it complements his makeup perfectly even though Sportacus knows next to nothing about these sorts of things.

Robbie’s rant stops mid sentence and his mouth hangs open in shock. They stand in silence for a moment as both of them struggle to find words. Sportacus is unreasonably relieved when Glanni decides to break the silence.

“Well... That was cute, I guess,” he says in an unimpressed voice. “Is that what you wanted to talk to us about?”

Sportacus realizes two things at once: 1) he feels very awkward now having said that in front of the person Robbie is already dating, and 2) he now has to talk to them about something very serious with _that_ hanging over their heads. Not that he exactly regrets saying it, but it doesn’t feel very heroic of him.

“Um, no, I actually wanted to talk about something else. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“That’s - er… That’s… fine. I - I mean - that’s not what I meant! It’s not fine! It’s - you -“ Robbie makes a few aborted motions with his hands and stammers a few more times before going red and looking at the ground, teeth clicking together as he clamps his jaw shut.

Glanni shakes with quiet laughter, eyes crinkling at the edges and a hand covering his mouth. “Robin, I’m going to go on ahead and buy us something good to eat. Why don’t you two, ah, finish this conversation up without me? Tata!”

Robbie looks panicked, eyes flickering between Glanni and Sportacus, one arm reaching out to stop the other villain from leaving but he spins away from Robbie’s hand and quickly walks away from them, laughing to himself all the while.

Just like that, the silence returns, weighing heavily on Sportacus’ shoulders as he tries to think of a way - any way - to break the awkwardness and broach the uncomfortable topic that had kept him up nearly all night. It should be easier now that Glanni’s left but he’s still having a bit of trouble focusing, what with how handsome Robbie looked. Maybe it would be easier to look at him without feeling dazed from a different angle. He flips into a handstand but it doesn’t really help how fluttery his stomach feels.

Robbie’s mouth curls into a frown. “Do you _really_ have to do that in front of me?” he asks without any real bite in his voice and makes an exaggeratedly disgusted face. “ _Blegh._ Exercise.”

Sportacus can’t help but smile at that. It’s… really nice to have such a normal interaction with him after so long of not seeing him in the middle of one of his schemes or otherwise just having a short chat with him as Robbie goes about his daily business in town. “Sorry, Robbie, I’m just glad to see you!”

Robbie gives him an indecipherable look and then sharply turns his face away, going red. “Okay. And? What, pray tell, do you want to talk about? You should know that I’m hungry and tired and… er, and I should catch up with Glanni before he gets grumpy I ditched his stupid date.”

Sportacus feels his smile dim at the mention of Glanni and it dims even more at the idea of their date. He flips back up into a standing position carefully. “Right. Um, I don’t know how to say this but…”

“Yes?” Robbie asks with suspicion in his voice. “But what?”

There’s no good way to say it. There’s no _easy_ way to ask. He just knows Robbie is going to get mad at him if he isn’t gentle with how he words it, but he still can’t think of a way to bring it up without making the villain stomp off in a huff and now they’re face to face and Robbie’s just _staring at him -_

“Spit it out, Sportaquiet!”

“IwaswonderingifGlanni’shurtingyouandifIcanhelp!” he says as quickly as he can in one breath.

Robbie blinks at him in surprise and then confusion. “Er. I caught ‘Glanni’, and that’s about it. Say it again without turning it all into one word.”

“I - I said, I was wondering if… if Glanni is hurting you at all, and if there was something I could do to help,” Sportacus forces himself to say, talking slowly and watching as Robbie’s eyebrows raise up towards his hairline.

“Is this about his stupid ‘Robin’ spiel?”

Sportacus nods.

Robbie puts his hands on his hips, lips pursing into such a disappointed look that Sportacus almost turns heel and runs away just to escape it.

“Listen here, Sportaworry. Childhood was a _loooong_ time ago. Glanni’s older, and quite a bit rowdier than myself - I’m _perfectly_ sensible and lazy, unlike him.” Robbie straightens out his jacket and preens just slightly at his self-praise.

“And,” Robbie grimaces as he continues, “I was just the teensiest bit… premature when I was born. Only natural I wasn’t built as tough. So I got hurt when he talked me into helping with his schemes, so what? We were stupid kids. Garbage like a few broken bones happens.”

“So, Glanni isn’t hurting you? He said he could get a little rough with you, and it concerned me.” Understatement of the year.

Robbie clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Of course not, I haven’t personally helped him in a scheme in over a decade. He’s pushy, but not a complete asshole. Although it’s not like I don’t get a few bumps and bruises from time to time, but that’s the curse that goes along with villainy.”

Okay, so it seems like he deeply misread the Glanni situation, something he’s rather grateful for, but Robbie’s last statement only makes more worries and questions crop up. “You get hurt when you invent your machines?”

“Not often. I might be lazy but I’m still careful,” Robbie says flippantly.

Sportacus _really_ doesn’t want to ask the next question but he has to. “Has it happened while I’ve been in LazyTown?”

Robbie’s eyes go wide into the same expression he always gets when he steps into his own traps. “Er… No?”

Sportacus buries his face in his hands and tries not to have a panic attack. Oh, what kind of hero is he?! Robbie’s expression might as well have screamed _YES!_ And the guilt from realizing his crystal had, this whole time, been ignoring the local villain’s injuries is almost unbearable.

“You stop that! Whatever it is you’re doing! If - if you’re crying, I’m _leaving!_ ”

He’d come up with this whole idea to help save Robbie from the danger he seemingly _mistakenly_ believed he was in, only to discover the real danger that had been there all along that he simply hadn’t noticed!

“Sportacus?” Robbie asks in a worried voice. “Seriously, stop acting all -” he makes an odd noise “- _weird_. I’ll have you know I’m an adult and can look after myself, thank you.”

He opens his mouth to say something about how it was still so unfair for Robbie to deal with that all by himself, because no one should be all alone when they’re hurt, but then he remembers... Sniffing just a bit and scrubbing his eyes, he tries to smile at Robbie. “I - I guess it’s a good thing Glanni has moved in with you then, huh?” Sportacus says in a voice he means to be upbeat, but comes out rather robotically.

Robbie swings from looking mildly concerned and freaked out about Sportacus’ brief meltdown (which a not-so-small part of Sportacus finds very sweet of him) to looking disgusted. “Moving in? God, he’d better not be. I’ve had just about enough of him.”

Inwardly, Sportacus feels conflicted about wanting to scold Robbie on talking about his partner that way, and feeling just the tiniest bit hopeful that perhaps their relationship wasn’t as close as it seemed. He strains to get his voice as neutral as possible and asks, “Do you not like having Glanni around?”

Robbie crosses his arms and looks deep in thought at the question. “Well… He hasn’t been annoying as usual. I still haven’t figured out what he’s getting out of this nice guy act though. _I_ certainly don’t believe his _I just want to see my little brother!_ routine, not for one second!”

Sportacus doesn’t breathe for a few seconds. “...Brother?”

Robbie gives him a look. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your eyes didn’t work, or did you somehow miss that we almost look like twins?”

“Oh, I didn’t -” Sportacus cuts himself off and goes pink. _“I didn’t want to assume”_ , was that really what he was just about to say? Gods, this day was going from bad to worse to extremely embarrassing very quickly.

“... What did you _think_ we were?”

“Um,” Sportacus squeaks. He can feel his ears burning under his hat. “B… boyfriends?”

There’s a beat of silence before Robbie slaps a hand to his forehead and begins pacing back and forth. Sportacus can barely catch when he starts grumbling under his breath. “I get it. Glanni, you absolute menace. Messing with people - jackass! Messing with _me!_ That’s what I get for - argh! See if I ever let him into my home again...”

“Robbie?”

The villain stop pacing and gives him a dark look.

“I’m sorry for assuming those things,” Sportacus apologizes, resisting the urge to scuff his shoe into the ground like a chastised little boy. “He, uh, implied it about you two and I didn’t even bother asking you. So… sorry again.”

“If you apologize one more time, I’m going to turn this entire town into candy.”

Sportacus raises his hands in surrender, not really believing the threat, but it’s always better to err on the side of caution. “No more sorries, I promise.”

“Good,” Robbie says sharply, clapping his hands. In a low growl that tingles up Sportacus’ spine, he continues, “Now, I’m going to go see _brother dearest_ and give him a piece of my mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the outfits: Too grassy, too classy, too splashy.
> 
> Thanks for all the encouragement! <3


	4. Brother Knows Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I am so sorry this took so long! I started working on other things and just never got around to it. Apologies, and please enjoy!

Glanni quickly walks away from his little brother and the town hero, doing a little spin to dodge away from Robbie’s grasp. He giggles all the way to town thinking about the stupid, love-struck expression on the elf’s face when he’d seen Robbie done up all properly. It had been a bit of a letdown when Sportacus had stopped there - Glanni had been so _sure_ that would’ve been enough to pop the romantic tension happening between the two, but apparently Sportacus was more controlled than he’d imagined, and Robbie more _dense._

He doesn’t know how someone related to him could be so absolutely oblivious to someone crushing on him. Glanni, ever the genius, had figured it out the moment they’d all met in the garden. And as the big brother, it’s his duty to make sure that Robbie finds a nice boy toy to mess around with! Or - _gag_ \- settle down with. Not that they’re making things easy, he sighs inwardly.

He straightens himself out, pulling himself to his full height and stomps a foot down. No matter what it takes, he’s going to get those two idiots to stop being… well, idiots. He’s a natural born genius, after all, and a criminal mastermind. Matchmaking the two loveblind men should be a piece of delicious, moist, chocolatey cake.

The clack of his heels on the walkway accompanies him as he ponders the next method he could use to trick them into confessing. Trying jealousy hadn’t really worked, and he’s not sure Robbie had even noticed the way the hero kept looking like a kicked puppy when he saw he and Robbie together.

The town comes into view and he pushes open the gates only to find them… stuck? He pushes harder. The gates don’t move. Standing on his tippy toes, he peeks over the gate and finds a decently large rock stuck in front of it.

Suspiciously, he looks left, then right, then back at the rock. “Who left this here?” he asks incredulously. Stepping back, he makes his way down the walkway and turns into the garden that was off to the side. “Fine. I’ll go this way instead.”

He smiles at the plastic flowers as he goes by. Robbie had spent the entire first day that Glanni had been in town complaining about everything under the sun - the kids, the noise, the pollen, the _sports elf._ Glanni had promised to get rid of the dreadful pollen producing flowers if Robbie would agree to come outside and have a picnic with him, wagering it mostly just to see Robbie’s face scrunch up and twitch as he weighed his options. Naturally, he agreed. He always ended up agreeing with Glanni one way or another.

One step out of the garden finds him face first on the ground, shrieking loudly as he falls. He blinks at the ground and shoots up, gingerly touching his face to make sure everything was still intact. God forbid his precious face was damaged!

Carefully, he stands up, eyes flickering as he tries to find just exactly _what_ made him trip, when his eyes spot it. Just there, catching the light and strung between the bench on one side and a bent signpost on the other, a thin little strip of wire.

He stares at it. “... Did I put that there?” he wonders to himself, scratching his head in confusion.

It seemed like something he would do, but he’s _positive_ he hadn’t. But then again, it didn’t seem like a very _Robbie-_ like thing to do, so who else could it have been?

“God, this town is driving me insane.” He shudders and draws his coat closer to himself. “I need to hurry this matchmaking schtick up and get back to Mayhem Town.”

Lifting his feet up, he steps over the wire and briskly walks down the street heading towards the bakery, neat little rows of homes on either side of him and a partitioned off garden ahead of him.

His only warning is a quiet, sharp whisper of “ _Now!_ ” before he’s blasted backwards by a sudden spray of water, up off his feet and landing heavily on his back. He gasps and scrambles up, tearing his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and carefully dabbing at his face, sighing in relief when it doesn’t come away stained with black. Quickly looking up, he spies the pig-tailed and pink headed girls popping their heads behind a stone partition.

_Those brats,_ he thinks viciously to himself, _had better thank God himself that Robbie uses waterproof makeup._

* * *

Stephanie giggles with Trixie as they hide after the success of their giant water balloon trap. They’d been hiding all morning behind a low stone wall next to some houses, waiting for Pixel to give them the heads up when Glanni headed into town, sitting there on the path to the bakery where they knew he’d go to eventually thanks to Pixel’s surveillance, and when he had they’d launched their attack.

She still felt that the tripping wire was a little mean, though. Part of her had wanted to go help Glanni up when they’d watched him fall on his face, but the bigger part of her that wants to kick him out of their town had won out.

Tightening her hands into fists and planting them firmly on her hips in her hero pose, she remembers the discussion they’d all had the day before.

 

 

The five kids huddle together after the weird interaction they’d just witnessed between Robbie, Sportacus, and the new man in town that they’re all now quite positive they don’t like very much.

“Did you see Sportacus’ face?” Trixie whispers harshly, face looking more worried than Stephanie has maybe ever seen it. “He looked… I dunno, scared.”

Ziggy nods uneasily, grabbing the end of his cape and holding it in front of himself like a security blanket. Stephanie can tell just by looking at him that seeing Sportacus so unnerved by what Glanni had said is really affecting him, and if she’s really honest with herself, it’s affecting her too. She frowns and crosses her arms. It was supposed to be cute! The pet name and the little dates they were having in town… But now it feels weird and kinda scary for reasons she couldn’t really pinpoint.

If only there was something they could do! But what?

“M-maybe we can just ask him to go away?” Ziggy suggests mildly, eyes downcast as he fiddles with his cape. “So Robbie can play with us again, and Sportacus won’t be so worried…”

Trixie and Stingy shake their heads at the innocent suggestion, and even Stephanie doesn’t feel up to humouring it although she knows he’s just trying to help. “I don’t think that’ll work, Ziggy,” Stephanie smiles weakly.

The group falls into silence again.

After a moment, Stingy sticks his nose in the air with a huff. “Mr. Rotten is _my_ villain, and Sportacus is _my_ friend so this - this _Glanni_ had better get lost! Or else!”

“Or else what?” Trixie asks with a raised brow. “You’ll beat him up and _force_ him to leave town?”

Stingy fiddles with his bow tie and avoids Trixie’s eyes. “Er… That’s…”

With a sharp gasp, Pixel interrupts Stingy’s hemming and hawing - “That’s it! If he wants to act like a villain, so should we!” At the confused and surprised looks, he grins, “We can kick him out of LazyTown! Then everything will go back to normal, right?”

“Do you think we can?” Trixie asks doubtfully. “I mean, Robbie’s an adult and a real villain and he can’t even kick Sportacus out of town.”

Pixel smiles triumphantly. “Glanni’s not a _hero_ though, not like Sportacus. And besides, there’s five of us and only one of him!”

Stephanie squirms in place as Trixie and Stingy both share looks and then nod firmly to agree to Pixel’s idea. There’s something so _wrong_ about the suggestion of them all becoming villains for the day, but on the other hand, it also seems to make perfect sense to her! “Fight fire with fire”, or so they say sometimes. Maybe it could work!

“B-but,” Ziggy protests, looking mildly horrified, “I don’t wanna be a villain!”

A light bulb pops up above Stephanie’s head and she puts her hands on Ziggy’s shoulders, mustering her most serious-looking face. “I know how you feel, but we have to, Ziggy. If we want to be Robbie’s hero, then we’ve got to be villains!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ziggy frowns.

“Yes it does!” Stephanie looks over her shoulder for some support.

“Yeah, it totally does!” Trixie agrees firmly.

Stingy harrumphs. “Of course it makes sense, this whole thing was _my_ idea.”

“Don’t worry, Ziggy,” Pixel says soothingly. “We don’t have to hurt him. Robbie hardly ever actually hurts anyone, right? Or if he does it’s on accident. All we have to do is pull enough tricks and things for him to _want_ to leave town.”

Ziggy chews his lip for a second, looking between all of them, before finally nodding. “Okay! Let’s be Robbie’s heroes - er, villains, I guess!”

“Perfect!” Trixie grins wickedly, rubbing her hands together in glee. “I’ve got _so_ many great ideas.”

  
  


Back in the present, Trixie cheers at the success of another part of their plan. “Next, all we have to do is wait for him to walk up and give the signal for the honey trap!” She pokes her head back out and is quiet for a second. “Um, where’d he go?”

Stephanie sneaks over to peek around the stone wall and looks at the puddle on the ground where their victim had _just_ been sitting. She sits back down and grabs out her walky-talky. “Pixel? Come in!”

“Yeah?”

“We lost him! Can you see him anywhere?”

Pixel had set up cameras around town to keep an eye on everything as they proceeded with their plan to make Glanni leave town, and just in case, he’d gotten one of his drones ready to fly around too. Just then, she and Trixie hear the buzz of the drone overhead. Smiling, she waves up at it.

“Stephanie!” Pixel voice shouts at her through the walky-talky. “Watch out!”

Before she can ask him what he meant, a hand reaches down past her shoulders and snatches the walky-talky out of her hand. Stephanie’s head snaps up and her eyes meet Glanni’s as he smiles nastily down at the two girls.

“Uh oh,” Stephanie weakly says, watching as Glanni clicks the little radio off and cuts Pixel’s worried voice off.

“‘Uh oh’ is right, you little gremlins.”

She pauses for just a second before scuttling backwards with Trixie.

Glanni shakes his head and starts to take a step around the stone partition, stepping out of the shade of the house that they were next to. “Oh, no, you’re not going anywhere you -” His monologue cuts off as he shrieks, a large bucket full of honey tips over and onto his head, drizzling down his face and onto his clothes. “What the everloving hell is _this_?!”

“Great job, Ziggy!” Trixie hollers, getting up and running away, Stephanie hot on her heels. They round the other corner of the little stone wall, meeting up with a slightly terrified looking Ziggy. Looking back, Glanni is ineffectually wiping his face with his increasingly sticky handkerchief, loudly shouting _very_ bad words that make Stephanie’s ears burn just hearing them.

“W-What now?” Ziggy asks, looking just as shocked by the tirade of angry curses behind them.

Stephanie bucks up her courage and motions for them to follow her. “Now to the next part of the plan!”

* * *

Robbie taps his foot irritably as Sportacus hops over the garden fence and moves the rock blocking them out of the way. He opens the gate for Robbie to storm dramatically through and eyes the rock, quite confused as to how it possibly got moved there. Was this a trick from Glanni, who would have come through here on his way to the bakery?

Well, no point in wondering about it now. He turns and bounds after the villain who stomps across the road without looking both ways, stomping in a puddle of water on the ground that -

Now hold on, he’s sure it hasn’t rained recently.

A quick inspection doesn’t reveal any opened taps or loose watering hoses or anything else of the sort so Sportacus allows himself to shrug it off as another strange occurrence in his life of strange occurrences. He catches up with Robbie just in time to see the lanky villain scooping up some strange golden substance from the ground with his finger.

“Robbie!” Sportacus yelps when the other man sticks the finger in his mouth. As if the kids weren’t bad enough! “What are you doing?!”

Robbie scrunches up his nose and whips out an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket to wipe off the rest of the residue. Sportacus has a small heart palpitation seeing such a beautiful piece of work ruined with the mysterious gunk. “Relax, Sportadork. It’s honey.”

Sportacus slumps slightly in relief and eyes the mess on the ground, noticing just then the trail of sticky footsteps leading away. The imprints are far too large to be a child’s and the shape seem to be… like… high heels…

Wasn’t Glanni wearing heels last he saw him?

He and Robbie seem to come to the same conclusion at the same time and look to one another - Robbie with what looks like glee and Sportacus with what he feels is the proper amount of trepidation.

“Just _what_ is happening in Lazy Town today?”

* * *

Glanni tosses his own ruined handkerchief aside, the poor thing soaked in honey. He’ll apologise to Robbie later for getting it mucked up, but only _after_ he teaches all the little devils that are infesting the town. In _Mayhem_ Town the kids were properly frightened of him and respected his stuff! Robbie was clearly slipping in his villainous duties!

He runs after the two girls and the little grubby looking one trundling along on his tricycle. After all, a proper villain can run in heels no matter how sticky!

After a short-lived chase through the cozy streets he catches up to them outside of a techy looking house.

“Aha!” he gasps, rather out of breath from the runaround not that he’ll ever admit it. “I - huff - got you now!”

The kids, for the most part, look worryingly _unworried._ The little zippy one on the bike seems anxious, chewing at his lip, but the two girls and a boy poking his head out from a window on the house all seem almost gleeful. The pink haired brat grins, all teeth, and points at the ground beneath his feet. He looks down.

“Is that a net?”

“Go, Stingy!” the pigtailed girl hollers.

Glanni looks over and watches as a small car revs up and starts driving away with some rope tied to it. Quite belatedly he notices the rope going taught and he shrieks as he finds himself hanging in mid-air, trapped in a net.

“Okay! Let’s quickly tie him up so we can drag him out of town!”

He struggles for a minute, children’s laughter pealing out beneath him. “Can this day get any worse?!”

* * *

He and Robbie are tracking the sticky footsteps when they hear a shriek. Sportacus is running and leaping away to where the shriek came from before he can even consider why his crystal didn’t beep.

There’s a lot of things he expects to see. Maybe Mrs. Busybody tripping, or the Mayor falling into one of the holes Robbie’s so fond of digging. He _doesn’t_ expect to see a decidedly sticky Glanni strung up in a net rope in front of Pixel’s home. Stephanie, Trixie, and Ziggy all look up with varying degrees of guilt in their faces. He follows the rope and sees Stingy in his car straining to keep Glanni up in the air. Pixel watches from his window view with a grimace.

“Um. Hi Sportacus,” Stephanie waves.

“ _Pixel!_ ” Trixie shouts. “What’s the point of having you as a look-out, anyways?!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault! He got here too fast!”

“If you little demons don’t put me down this _instant_ , I swear I will actually burn down your homes!” Glanni shouts, long limbs flailing in the trap.

“What - huff - is going on?” Robbie gasps as he lightly jogs up.

Sportacus isn’t sure what to say. He opens his mouth and then closes it when words fail to reach him.

Robbie surveys the scene and decisively laughs, clapping his hands together in delight. “Glanni, you really stepped into the oldest trick in the book!”

Glanni looks ready to spit at them. “At least _I_ hardly ever get caught in my own traps!”

“That was uncalled for. Sticky, keep him up there for an hour or two and maybe he’ll learn a lesson about not mucking around with my life!”

Sportacus quickly intervenes as Stingy starts nodding. “No! No, no, Stingy, please back up slowly and let Glanni down. I don’t know what you all thought you were doing but it’s not very nice, is it?”

Ziggy sniffles at the ground. “I knew he’d be mad.”

“I’m not mad, just a little confused,” Sportacus soothes him, keeping one eye carefully on Glanni so as to make sure Stingy won’t decide to slam the car backwards and let the villain smash into the ground.

When Glanni is safely down, the kids confess their plan to kick him out of town. Sportacus has never seen Robbie look so genuinely proud and delighted, and decides that perhaps all the confusion and rule-breaking today had been worth it.

“I wouldn’t have even had to stick around if _you_ -” Glanni spits at Sportacus, “- would have just gone ahead and asked Robin out! It’s so _gross_ the way you two keep dancing around one another! Seriously, what was it going to take?!”

All the kids look at Sportacus. He looks at Robbie. Robbie stares at Glanni.

“What are you talking about?” Robbie asks.

Glanni clenches his hands. “Robin, I would positively shake you until I knocked some sense into that overly gelled head of yours if I wasn’t covered in honey. _He._ ” Glanni points at Sportacus. “Likes. _You._ Get it?”

A long moment of silence passes as Robbie seems to go red and then pale multiple times and Sportacus starts praying for his crystal to go off so he can avoid the awkward situation Glanni’s thrown them into.

Glanni throws his hands in the air. “Whatever! I tried!” With that, he turns and stomps his feet all the way to his car, shouting about this and that, hands waving around in the air. “You’re so dense! I try to help you out with your pitiful love life and _this_ is what I get? Honey?! This will never come out! Never!”

Sportacus listens with a gradually reddening face. Love life! He peeks at Robbie and feels his stomach flip-flop when he sees matching red cheeks on the villain’s face.

Glanni throws open the door to his car. “Send me the rest of my things later. If I have to spend even another second in this town, I’ll be sick. And I’m stealing that fucking dress to make up for this, I hope you know.”

Robbie scowls. “You’d better not! I’ll - I’ll tell on you to Mother if you do!”

That makes Glanni spin around with a hand over his heart and a wounded expression on his face. “You wouldn’t be so cruel, Robin.”

“Wait, wait,” Stephanie says, waving a hand in the air. “Mother?”

Robbie’s lips curls. “I don’t know if you know this, Pinky, but most people are born. We happened to be born from our mother.”

Stephanie blinks and the kids mutter quietly in confusion to one another. Sportacus coughs in embarrassment and steps in. “Stephanie, Robbie and Glanni are brothers! Don’t they look so alike?” he asks as though he hadn’t just learned this himself earlier.

The brothers give him identical looks of disapproval.

“Wow,” Trixie says with her brows raised. “You’re right.”

“So you’ve been brothers the whole time?” Stephanie asks with more force, clearly reeling over her romantic delusions being crushed.

Robbie puts his hands on his hips. “I’m really not sure what about that is so hard to understand.”

They’re interrupted by Glanni snapping, “Get away from my car, you cretin! Get! Shoo! I don’t want your grubby fingers all over it!”

Stingy, who had been trying to climb into the car and perhaps attempt to drive off with it despite his short legs, gives Glanni a nasty glare. “ _You’re_ telling _me_ that I’m grubby? Hmph! Go look at a mirror!”

Robbie and Trixie snicker at Glanni’s shell-shocked face.

“You know, Robin,” Glanni says stiffly. “I always thought you were going to easy on the people here, what with you letting that hero hop around. But now I can see I was wrong. I’m going back to Mayhem Town where kids are properly frightened by villains and everything makes sense.”

“Good riddance,” Robbie huffs. Sportacus waves goodbye weakly, and also privately thinks _Good riddance._

The car’s wheels squeal as Glanni stomps on the gas pedal and speeds out of Lazy Town, hopefully to never be seen again (as mean as that is to hope for).

“So Sportacus has a crush on Robbie Rotten, huh,” Trixie says loudly when the dust has settled.

He can feel all of the kids’ eyes on him again.

“Don’t you kids have a mess to clean up?” Robbie growls before Sportacus can stammer out an explanation. “I’ll have you know, that was a handmade suit that you ruined. So _get lost._ ”

Stephanie gasps as though realizing something and think winks very unsubtly at them. “Okay! We’ll leave!” With a few glances back and some more unsubtle winks, she rounds the kids up and shepherds them off to their honey trap mess.

Sportacus flounders to think of something to say. “Er, Robbie, I - uh - er -”

“Was Glanni right?” Robbie asks bluntly. “About… that. I’m not very good at picking up that sort of thing. If he’s wrong, just say so and everything goes back to normal.”

Sportacus takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Just spit it out! Is he a brave hero or isn’t he? “... Yes, he was right. I really do think you’re wonderful! And creative! And I wish I could spend more time with you! And - and - maybe, if you like, we could hold hands!”

Robbie blinks owlishly at him in surprise, scrunching his shoulders up to his ears. “W-Well I’m not going to stop being a villain,” he warns, cheeks pink.

Frankly, Sportacus can’t really imagine a world without Robbie as a villain. Without him getting dressed up and finding all sorts of new and exciting games for the kids to play, all under the guise of kicking Sportacus out of town. “Of course! I would never want you to change. I like you for who you are already!”

“And I _won’t_ do sports or eat sportscandy.”

Sportacus sighs with defeat and some fondness. “I wish you would be more healthy, but you’re an adult and can make those decisions for yourself. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

Robbie scrunches up his nose and toys with the hem of his dress jacket - Sportacus holds his breath the whole time, bouncing anxiously in place. Then, without a word Robbie sticks his hand out to be held. Sportacus easily slides his in and has to hold himself back from doing a few backflips of joy. It’s perfect!

“You can walk me back to my lair, I suppose,” Robbie says aloofly, the redness in his cheeks betraying his feelings.

Sportacus’ face hurts with how wide his smile goes.

As he walks Robbie back to his lair - _him,_ Sportacus, walking! - Sportacus begins to think perhaps he should write a letter to Glanni from Mayhem Town and thank him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you can tell which kids I like writing most :P I hope the ending was satisfying for everyone! It was a blast to write, and again sorry that it took so long.
> 
> Thank you for your comments and kudos!


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